What is Balboa? Balboa is a dance that was popular in
southern California in the 1930's. It is sometimes
referred to as cartoon dancing because of its fancy
lightening bolt footwork. The dance is frequently done
at faster tempos (180 bpms and up) and combines well
with other types of swing dancing particularly when
dancers are trying to catch their breath during faster
songs.

The dance was named after Balboa island in
Newport beach where it was first developed in the
Rendezvous Ballroom. The dance came from either the
fox trot, the Charleston or both. "Pure" Balboa was
danced completely in closed position and was initially
developed for conservative dance halls with limited
dance space. Such locations would limit swing dancing
by having rules prohibiting the "wild" kicks of the
charleston or the space filling breakaways of the
lindy.

Eventually, balboa was combined with other
forms of swing dancing. When dancers combined balboa
footwork with break away or open position patterns it
was called bal-swing. Notable developers of balboa
were Maxie Dorf, Hal Takier, and Willie Desatoff.
This dance combines well with lindy and allows dancers
to dance to a greater variety of music at different
tempos.

The demonstrations in Chapter One show many of the figures which follow and are explained in Chapter Two. I hope you enjoy it!